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Rough Start For Pacers, Hibbert All Bound Up Together

MILWAUKEE – Roy Hibbert struggled and smoldered on the court as the Indiana Pacers dug their hole deeper with nearly every trip downcourt in their blowout loss to the Milwaukee Bucks Wednesday at the BMO Harris Bradley Center.

But the 23 minutes he spent on the Pacers’ bench, compared to his 25 in the game, were just as bad. Hibbert rolled his eyes at calls and non-calls, slammed his towel to the floor when Bucks’ shooters got friendly bounces and covered his face time and again. At one point, his 7-foot-2 self was folded into the open chair next to him, face down, anguishing through a butt-kicking that got to 32 points at one juncture against Milwaukee.
Then, the Pacers center beat himself up pretty bad in the visitors’ dressing room, too.

“It’s very frustrating,” Hibbert said, cooperative but looking a little tortured. “It’s very hard to get into a rhythm … personally. I think I’m doing good defensively, but offensively I need to get going and help the team out. I want to do more than I have been. I have to figure out a way to get that done.”

Notorious as his own worst critic, Hibbert isn’t overreacting to either his performances or the Pacers’ unexpectedly sour 3-6 start. He scored seven points and had eight rebounds against Milwaukee. He took only six shots and made three, took only four free throws and made one. He’s shooting 38.6 percent, including nights of 1-of-7 and 3-of-15.

The loss Wednesday was the fifth time in Indiana’s past six games that Hibbert scored in single digits, and the fifth in six in which he grabbed fewer than 10 rebounds. His minutes have been down, too; sometimes due to fouls, sometimes due to games like this one, when there was little use in keeping him or any of the Pacers starters around for long.

“I want to play,” Hibbert said, shaking his head. “I want to be involved. It’s frustrating. Obviously we were getting our tails handed to us. But I want to be out there playing and be able to affect the game. To sit out and have the guys on the bench take the brunt of it … as a leader and as one of the older guys on the team, you want to do more.”

There are those around the Pacers who wonder if Hibbert already is trying to do too much to justify the four-year, $58.3 million contract he got as a restricted free agent over the summer. After all, Milwaukee’s Ersan Ilyasova – who also cashed in with a five-year, $40 million deal in free agency – has struggled too (6.4 ppg, 27.9 FG percent), possibly nervous about demonstrating his worth.

It’s possible that Hibbert consciously is trying to pick up slack from Danny Granger, Indiana’s sharpshooting small forward who is out for three months with a knee injury. But Hibbert swats those suggestions away as if they’re lazy floaters.

“I’m not forcing anything,” he said. “I’m not standing out there putting up a lot of shots. Six shot attempts. I could understand if I was catching it and forcing up bad shots.

“I’m just not getting into a rhythm.”
Larry Sanders, the Milwaukee big who has improved significantly this fall, said some of that was by design. “We did a good job tonight just knocking him off his position,” Sanders said. “He couldn’t really get where he wanted his feet set on the block. I think a lot of guys have targeted in on him, getting him off his position. You push him out a little bit, he struggles, because his go-to’s are those turnaround jump hooks. If he can’t get down there, his game’s kind of limited.”

Indiana coach Frank Vogel is trying to plug leaks up and down his rotation, so Hibbert’s poor start to 2012-13 – and mental toughness – are just two of the problems. “It’s confidence and adjustments to new roles by pretty much everybody on our team except our two big guys,” Vogel said. “Roy and David [West] are dealing with everybody else on the team adjusting, and them trying to keep a rhythm while that’s happening.”

West isn’t free and clear, either, scoring a season-low seven points in 23 minutes and shooting 10-for-37 over his last three games. “Everybody’s got to own some of this,” the power forward said. “It’s not totally on [Hibbert]. We have to do a better job of getting him some easy stuff. He shouldn’t have to work as hard as he works. If you watch some of the other big guys in the league, they’re able to get going early because they get easy stuff. Not have to fight to catch it and fight to make a move. All of that is part of his struggles, but we can’t just put it all on him.”

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Re: NBA.com article about the game yesterday and Hibbert.

This should impact those who felt that Big Money's issue was a lack of effort or desire. The Larry Sanders quotes say it all, and Hibbert would be wise to take the constructive criticism: He has one move, needs to add more ways to score and he needs to stop getting pushed around by power forwards.

Re: Rough Start For Pacers, Hibbert All Bound Up Together

Sanders on Roy stuck out to me...

Larry Sanders, the Milwaukee big who has improved significantly this fall, said some of that was by design. “We did a good job tonight just knocking him off his position,” Sanders said. “He couldn’t really get where he wanted his feet set on the block. I think a lot of guys have targeted in on him, getting him off his position. You push him out a little bit, he struggles, because his go-to’s are those turnaround jump hooks. If he can’t get down there, his game’s kind of limited.”

I hope Roy takes this out on the centers around the league "targeting him," if he can.

Re: Rough Start For Pacers, Hibbert All Bound Up Together

I hope Roy takes this out on the centers around the league "targeting him," if he can.

I brought up in the postgame thread how Ekpe Udoh was completely owning Roy physically on a couple possessions when the Pacers had the ball. He was determined to deny Roy the ball and he succeeded in doing it. Roy simply could not get in front of him and put himself in a position where he could catch a pass. Udoh was completely dominating him physically and out-muscled Roy to keep him out position. There's one possession that sticks out in my head where Udoh owned Roy for about 20 seconds.

Re: Rough Start For Pacers, Hibbert All Bound Up Together

With the Chicago Bulls undergoing an unfortunate waiting period with star guard Derrick Rose on the shelf, and the Boston Celtics seemingly rebuilding on the fly after watching Ray Allen take his senior act down to South Beach, the Indiana Pacers were everyone's pick take the East's mantle as The Second Greatest Thang Besides the Heat. After all, the Pacers gave Miami a good show in last May's second round loss to the Heat, and internal development combined with a full year of workhorse coach Frank Vogel's machinations seemed to line all the breadcrumbs toward a second seed season.Just nine games in, the Pacers might still be well on their way to that spot come spring, but the start to the 2012-13 season has been an absolute miss. The squad has lost six out of nine games to begin the campaign, and even with 73 to play that record hardly seems to resemble how awful the team has looked. Yes, it is holding its own defensively, and we're all mindful of the fact that scoring swingmanDanny Granger will be out for a while due to some worrying knee issues, but the Pacers reek.And with Granger away from the media's glare, and Paul George too green to take on all the slings and arrows, max contract-outfitted Roy Hibbert is left to answer for his team's slow start. True to form, and somewhat making up for the dodgy start, the All-Star big man is holding his own in terms of explanation. From NBA.com's Steve Aschburner:

" […] 23 minutes he spent on the Pacers' bench, compared to his 25 in the game, were just as bad. Hibbert rolled his eyes at calls and non-calls, slammed his towel to the floor when Bucks' shooters got friendly bounces and covered his face time and again. At one point, his 7-foot-2 self was folded into the open chair next to him, face down, anguishing through a butt-kicking that got to 32 points at one juncture against Milwaukee.
Then, the Pacers center beat himself up pretty bad in the visitors' dressing room, too.
"It's very frustrating," Hibbert said, cooperative but looking a little tortured. "It's very hard to get into a rhythm … personally. I think I'm doing good defensively, but offensively I need to get going and help the team out. I want to do more than I have been. I have to figure out a way to get that done."

Based on the eye test alone, Hibbert is doing well defensively. Heck, the entire Pacers team appears to be holding their own on that end, even down to the routinely in-air Tyler Hansbrough, as they rank fourth out of 30 NBA teams in terms of defensive efficiency. It's a remarkable stat considering the group is last, per-possession, in causing turnovers on that end; but the combination of stout field goal percentage defense and good enough rebounding keeps teams scratching for air as they attempt to claw their way toward 91 points.The problem is that the Pacers are often left having to claw their way toward 88 points. The team's 87.8 points per game ranks last in the NBA, and this isn't a case of blue collar-pace altering how we judge this squad, because Indiana is 28th in the NBA in offensive efficiency. The team looks as bad as Washington, the Andrew Bynum-less Philadelphia 76ers, and Orlando. And because the Pacers were expected to win as many games as Washington, an Andrew Bynum-less Philly team, and Orlando; the viewing experience is all the more shocking.There is no movement — none — to this team's offense. The caveat that Danny Granger (hardly a Hondo Havlicek in terms of moving without the ball) has been out for each of these nine games doesn't really go a long way towards absolving the team of looking like it has absolutely no clue what to do once it bothers to cross the half-court stripe. It's true that George Hill is far from a pure point guard, and the recently-acquired D.J. Augustin hasn't even made a quarter of his shots on the season, but this doesn't for a second explain the offensive confusion this team can't seem to work its way out of.That "work" is sticking point amongst Pacer fans. The fair-weather locals have yet to notice — I re-located to Indiana a few years ago and the typical sports fans in the area won't pay attention to this team unless it goes up 2-1 in a series against Miami again — but Pacer die-hards were apoplectic on Twitter during Wednesday night's loss to the division-leading Milwaukee Bucks while complaining about the team's lack of hustle and interest. And this wasn't some group of pull-up-yer-bootstraps gym teacher-types, but knowledgeable NBA observes who don't rely on clichés to make a point.Chief among them is the great Jared Wade at Eight Points, Nine Seconds. He's not one to overreact to players taking it easy during one of 82 regular season games, nor one to obsess over a season seemingly without rehabilitation just two weeks into a months-long campaign, but there is a reason he only gave Hansbrough (a player he hasn't paused in criticizing quite a bit in the past) and little-used guard (as in, "played four minutes all season") Orlando Johnson anything more than a failing grade in the team's performance on Wednesday.It's early, to be sure, but none of the players on this team have been proven to do anything more than surprise away from the glare of the spotlight and also take advantage (briefly) of a hurting Miami Heat team last May. The issues are obvious — the team doesn't move away from the ball, it does miserable work in screening for big men like Hibbert and David West to work from their comfort zones, and its sub-40 percent shooting ranks it last in the NBA. It's a lack of everything — continuity, movement, spacing, touch, precision and confidence — that marks a great or even good NBA offense.And it's not just Danny Granger's absence. The Pacers have quite a bit to work out if they ever want to resemble the hopeful unit that made Miami's life so worrisome six months ago.

Re: Rough Start For Pacers, Hibbert All Bound Up Together

I hope Roy takes this out on the centers around the league "targeting him," if he can.

Also, the guys around the league are well aware how much money the other guys are making. Everyone in the NBA knows that Roy got a big payday this summer. He definitely has an extra target on him now. Guys want to beat up on the young guy making a lot more money than them, who they might think isn't worth it.

Re: Rough Start For Pacers, Hibbert All Bound Up Together

We are 4th in D, 1st in shooting%, 2nd in rebound, worst in shooting, worst in scoring. Now we see where the problem is - Offence.
We dont have reliable 3pt shooter. Opp team simply needs to mark the paint stopping West and Hibbert and Hill. It is a much harder season for Hibbert and West as the opp team knows how to D us. We need to find a 3pt shooter to give them more space or PG drawing more double team to create space.

We have progress in D but we needa fill the shooter spot. Create space outside.

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Re: Rough Start For Pacers, Hibbert All Bound Up Together

It sounds like common sense, but Shaq is 100% correct in his assessment. I know Larry wanted Roy to "read the defense" and preached that to him, but Roy's big problem is that he waits too long and gives the defense a chance to set.

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Re: Rough Start For Pacers, Hibbert All Bound Up Together

team of looking like it has absolutely no clue what to do once it bothers to cross the half-court stripe.

That's the issue. Guys are NOT getting good looks and are NOT just missing makeable shots. The shots we see the Pacers get do not look like some of the shots other teams get, and that's going against the Pacers good defense. It's fully possible that if the Pacers had to play against their own defense that they might not score 20 points.

And Imawhat I just said that same thing about the low post game in the "Solutions" thread. It's not just Roy, it's the plays that run off the Roy-post setup. He's waiting for stuff to unfold, the guys are slow to read what to do to help him, and the whole thing is just a mess that makes it really easy for the doubles to time his moves.

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Re: Rough Start For Pacers, Hibbert All Bound Up Together

Shaq said it all - "GET MEAN ROY"! Roy allows himself to get pushed off his spot way too much. Even though he is often overmatched strengthwise - he still needs to fight for position and if he does he'll start getting better shots and fouls on the other team.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
- Benjamin Franklin

Re: Rough Start For Pacers, Hibbert All Bound Up Together

Shaq said it all - "GET MEAN ROY"! Roy allows himself to get pushed off his spot way too much. Even though he is often overmatched strengthwise - he still needs to fight for position and if he does he'll start getting better shots and fouls on the other team.